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Toyotsu Auto Mart opens shop in Kenya

Company invests Ksh. 500 million in multi-operational pre-owned car showroom

Tsusho Used

Toyotsu Auto Mart Ltd, a subsidiary of Toyota Tsusho Company Limited officially opened it new multi-operational showroom in South C, Nairobi. The company has been established for the purpose of retail, servicing of pre-owned Toyota vehicles and as an affiliated company of Toyota Kenya.

Toyotsu Auto Mart will sell Toyota, Daihatsu, Hino and Subaru brands. Professionals, with sound technical knowledge, will source for all the vehicles. "We are very pleased with the law on the age restrictions on second hand imports" said Toyotsu Managing Director Yoshihiro Goto at the launch ceremony "Kenya has the most rigid aging limit amongst the East African countries which is appropriate to protect consumers from a flood of poor quality cars from overseas."

Most of the cars will come from Toyota dealers in Japan who will give Toyotsu Auto Mart the first priority in selecting quality stock for the Kenyan market. Customers have the option of buying in-house stock from the wide variety available or pre-ordered units that meet specific customer requirements. The company will also assist re-market fleet and individually owned Toyota. Further, the new facility will offer additional services including unit sales, parts and after-sales from the state of art equipment and technical expertise available

"The Toyota is a car that has warmed its ways into many Kenyan's hearts due to the fact that our cars respond to identified needs. Yet, not many can afford brand new vehicles. We are therefore responding to increasing demands for pre-owned cars with an excellent service history. By offering professional servicing with genuine spare parts and affordable service charges we will be able to maintain our customer's car quality at the highest level and increase the re-sale value." he concluded

Tsusho Capital can provide financing services for cars between 8 to 12 years once Toyotsu Auto Mart assesses the value.

Toyotsu Auto Mart Kenya Ltd. was established in December 2010 as a subsidiary of Toyota Tsusho Co., Ltd in Japan which also owns Toyota Kenya Ltd.

Breakdown of Toyotsu Auto Mart Kenya Ltd services:-

A Service shop undertaking minor and major service of all Toyota models
Spare Parts shop
Specialty shops hosting companies that may form strategic alliances with Toyotsu Auto Mart Kenya Ltd. These companies may be: after-market vehicle accessories dealers, vehicle tracking service providers, asset finance providers, insurance providers etc
In house auction services
Buy back schemes for fleet owners
A vehicle sales yard that can accommodate about 1,000 cars

Kenyan Roads, the First in Africa to Experience the New Look Fortuner and Hilux

Nairobi, 1st September 2011… Toyota Kenya today announced that it would be the first country in Africa to introduce the new look Fortuner and Hilux models. The two models will be launched during the Total Motor Show planned for September

The two models have transformed into vehicles that simultaneously realize the two contradicting elements of "global best" and "local best" by making striking changes to the interior and exterior designs while taking into consideration specifications that match the requests of each region.

“Our engineers did extensive research into different regions around the world to get a true sense of how the vehicles are used in the locale , to ascertain, "What is essential for the local best,” and to implement their findings in the model development” said Toyota General Manager Anthony Percival. “The engineers further looked at the changing personal preferences accompanying lifestyle changes, infrastructural and other improvements in the automotive society, the results are more style, functionality and performance in the new models.”

The models whose target markets include private companies, Government, NGO’s amongst others are projected to increase Toyota’s sales by 30%.

Earlier on this year, TEAL began the journey towards achieving our 2010 goal of participation in the Company of the Year Awards. Through the Managing Director´s support and leadership of the HR Manager, the COYA champions´ bravely took on the rigorous self assessment exercise. This involved evaluating TKL´s business practices through seven determinants of Leadership and Management, Customer Orientation and Marketing, Finance, knowledge management among others. Anticipation of the results heightened at the gala night, as the champions together with the team leaders sat in the magnificent Dome in the heart of Nairobi National Park, waiting for the moment.

The team jumped in jubilation as the last determinant was announced and we were the winners! It was a great surprise and a pleasant one as TEAL was feted to an award in Productivity and Quality. The Judges citation read: “This Company has developed a continuous improvement culture that has top management support. The organization has well documented visualization of process improvement and has applied world class models that has generated benefits such as shelf capacity of 80 per cent and obtained great results from its 5S program”. The Award is based on measures undertaken to improve productivity and quality. This also includes the mechanism followed by TEAL to enhance the productivity and quality of processes (e.g. 5S, TPS, ISO certification, etc). Being the first time to participate, and the only motor industry to ever participate, and competing with sixty eight top companies we were indeed very proud. This award would never have come at a better time when Toyota was assuring customers all over the world of its quality products.

As we drove back through the park, proudly holding our trophy, only one thing run through our minds, the journey towards being a Great company had just begun.

Hearty congratulations go to Nicholas Munge and Fredrick Maungu Who did TkL proud in the first ever Africa Parts skills contest organized by TTAF in Johannesburg. The two took 1st runner-up (stores category) and 2nd runner-up (sales category) position respectively. TkL once again reaffirmed its skilled and quality people in the organization. Worth mentioning also is the Parts Trainer Martin Wamae who passionately took the students through a thorough training. In addition to this, Parts department has consistently made efforts to satisfy customers and hence their many awards. The team makes takes time to analyze voice of customer and develops action plans to meet most of the customers´ expectations. Added to their chest of trophies are the External CSI trophy and Most improved in Internal CSI. Bravo team!

Podium finish, Service Advisors no. 1 Moses Salvador, Kericho Toyota, no. 2 Eunice Luku, Nairobi Toyota, no. 3 Jane Jumba Mr. Moses Salvador Mahonga of Kericho Toyota emerged as the 2010 Champion of the Service Adviser (SA) skills contest held at Toyota East Africa´s premises on the 21st of August. Moses emerged top at the contest that pitted Service Advisors from all Toyota Dealerships & Branches countrywide. The contest focuses on the skills that are fundamental to Toyota customer service, known as the “3S Philosophy”, which has become the basic Philosophy for service activities.
The annual contest is organized by the Training Department at TKL-consisting of Nicholas Kaleve and Jimmy Kagau, who were assisted by other members of TKL staff in the exercise. The After sales & Dealer Strategy Team Leader “TJ” was at hand to welcome the participants and give them a word of encouragement and award the winners.

It was hard to believe, as TKL was receiving awards, more and more kept streaming in with the last one to close the year being the announcement of TKL being a winner of the S-TEAM Award Grand Prize! TKL was the first to be mentioned among six other distributor countries that were honored with this award.

The S-TEAM room was a previous training room remodeled after The MD; Mr. Hylton Bannon listened to the voice of TKL´s peoples through a sit in session of 90 days of his early first days at TKL. Each team identified its purpose, responsibilities´, task (daily, weekly and monthly), built each teams organization chart so as to have the right level of people resources to achieve their purpose. The refreshing look and feel of the room gives focus to teams hence improving productivity by doing things right and reminding everyone that we are one winning team driven by various purpose to achieve a goal.

It was from this that the idea of the S-TEAM room was born, a common room to create a unifying bond amongst the twenty four teams. This common meeting place is accessible to everyone where KPI´s are shared with clear monthly visuals of each team´s performance. It is also a room where Team leaders meet weekly in an informal setting to foster open communication. The visual boards have reduced wastage of paper normally used at DMT reviews. On the winning streak was Yamaha Team too who among eight other distributors won the S-TEAM Stars Prize for the Improvement of Yamaha Workshop.

It was a “First” for TEAL in most of these contests as this too was the first ever S-TEAM Contest and TEAL won an award! Mr Hylton´s Leadership has really seen a tremendous increase in TKL´s productivity and efficiency and the team is out to better its performance. To crown the year and the many achievements at TKL, Mr. Hylton reiterated the successes of the year which included winning an award at COYA, Winning the S-TEAM Award, big reduction of units over 4 months, Major reduction of WIP, Parts monthly record sales broken, Best DD ever in TKL, a Customer Database, acquisition of two new pieces of land among many other achievements, all made possible through a focused team effort. In his end year thank you message, the MD said “I am very happy with the team that we now have in place and I´m confident that we can achieve “3080 plus 1” in 2011.

He further added “none of this would have been possible without hard work and dedication of all people belonging to team TKL. So from me a very big and warm thank you to you for all you did in 2010”.

TKL – increases its geographical footprint in Kenya.

Eldoret, a town bustling with heavy economic activity, supporting the larger north rift and western part of Kenya, and the evident heavy presence of Toyota�s in the region proved to be a potential business hub for TKL to take advantage of. This potential business opportunity saw the opening of a 1S– Parts facility which since its inception has received tremendous response showing how hungry the region was for Toyota genuine parts.

The Parts centre was officially opened in September in line with TKL´s strategic plan to increase its national foot-print in Kenya with an objective to increase product offering to all Toyota customers and improving accessibility to products and services. Plans are underway to expand the facility to a 2S and later a 3S to capitalize on the economic boom in the area. TKL has continued to live up to promise to offer customers the joy of owning a Toyota through offering the best in after sales.

New Team – Dealer Development Team

The inception of a Dealer development team was formed with the aim of supporting dealer´s activities. Under the leadership of Theuns van Rensburg – The After Sales & Dealer Network Team leader together with Geoffrey Sige and Sammy Karuga, the Team has made tremendous efforts in improving dealership standards. The team�s effort to ensure this happened started off with awarding best performing dealers, giving them incentives, regular training and the newest idea was to share knowledge through the idea of a newsletter.

“The Network” as it is called, is a 2 page monthly newsletter whose aim is to keep their commitment to maintain the Dealer network informed and to create a sense of cooperation amongst various dealers and collaboration with TKL. Dealers use this platform to promote their own activities to the entire network and demonstrate the unique way each member of the Toyota family contributes to its story.

Theuns who is popularly known as “TJ” has also brought fresh energy to the dealer network and will be responsible for Parts, Service, Body & Paint, Conversion, Technical Dept (inc. Technical &warranty) and Dealer Development.“TJ ” – has over 20 plus years of automotive experience, & has worked in different levels at Toyota South Africa, Toyota Tshusho Africa and most recently at Toyota Djibouti.The new team leader for after sales & Dealer network strategy understands well the challenges faced by both distributors and dealers in Africa in terms of providing uniform world class after sales service to customers and the importance of growing service, parts and Dealerships. TJ is eager to add his energies to the Dealer Development Team as it continues to lay the groundwork for a strong, vibrant Dealer Network.

Going Regional – Road shows & Trade fairs

In the Month of September, Nakuru region played host to two important fairs. The Naivasha 2010 Horticultural Fair–Naivasha Town and the Agri– Business Fair 2010–Nakuru Town. These events provided Toyota an opportunity to promote its vehicles to the affluent farming and horticultural majority in the region.

Bhogals, the Nakuru region Dealer took up the challenge to participate in the two trade fairs. To strengthen the foundations of dealer business and to add value to the whole marketing mission, Bhogals Team & TKL�s marketing Team also held road shows in the neighboring towns of Narok, Naivasha and Nakuru and the response was amazing. It was evident that Toyota still remained the preferred motor vehicle. The promotion and trade fairs over the one week period resulted in Bhogals getting 7 units sold and a customer prospect list of one hundred and twenty.

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